Swinging mooring v marina annual berth

First off - batteries on a swinger - wind gen and/or solar will keep the batteries topped up, but if you regularly use the boat and plan your return to berth to include motoring then you don't necessarily need either.

Self bailer? Self draining cockpit - only the first boat had a cockpit sole that was close to the waterline, the next two have been significantly above it - and no problem with draining.

Now for the pro's/con's of a swinger.

1) Price - it's far cheaper to swing, and whilst I'm unsure of the price difference in insurance, ours isn't expensive.
2) Wear & Tear - you're attaching at a single point and in the main, you're not rubbing against anything else - so that's another plus.
3) Views - you're further away from neighbours so you don't have to go anywhere to enjoy your boat.

the negatives
1) Accessibility - when it's blowing a hoolie it might not even be safe to get into a tender ...
2) Convenience - when you get back to the car and realise you've forgotten something it can be quite a trek back!
3) Isolation - by yourself on a mooring - how many others are keeping an eye on your boat when you're not there?

On the whole I'd rather be in a marina - the convenience would be the main drive behind that - but for me the price is the limiting factor.
If you're in a marina you can get the views by leaving your berth and picking up a buoy or dropping hook. You also get the comfort of knowing you can get down there in pretty much all weather.
But, we're on a swinger (for the "summer"), can't see that changing ... but it's nice :)
 
I've spent three years on swinging moorings and am now on my third in a marina.

Most of the pros and cons have already been mentioned. Swinging moorings can be great, but their location and the available facilities are everything. The last mooring I had was cheap but access was a long dinghy ride (no water taxi option), parking was very difficult (no overnight parking permitted at the nearest launching site - I can still remember the hostile stares I received from local residents when I removed my old Landrover from the street I'd left it in for a week!) and dinghy storage was not very secure. As a result, I hardly used the boat. If you've got a mooring with a water taxi or short hop to shore, secure dinghy storage and plentiful parking, that's a whole different ballgame.

Now we're in a marina we find we use the boat much more. For a start, we use her all year round - something that's not always possible on a mooring due to the operator's t&cs or insurance considerations. And although I'm in Chichester Marina, my experience is not at all like Zagato's. It's very quiet where we are and our neighbours - when we see them - are very nice.

What doesn't seem to have been explored much on this thread is cost - the assumption being that a swinging mooring will always be a lot cheaper. That may be the case if you have a boat that can take the ground, or if you're able to leave the boat on the mooring all year. But if you have a deep fin craft, consider the following:

Chichester harbour Itchenor Reach A2 mooring (deep water for up to 12m - if you can get one!): £1216.08
Winter storage ashore - e.g Thornham Marina which I think are very competitive: £939.36 for 6 months / 10 metre boat + £148.28 cradle hire for the winter season

So, for a 10m boat, that's £2303.72.

Chichester Marina charge £3830.53 for a fully serviced pontoon mooring including storage ashore when required, so the difference is about £1500 (I've ignored lift out / in for the comparison as these will be paid either way).

£1500 is a lot of money, but insurance will be cheaper (£100 less? - I'm guessing here) and you get up to 42 free visitor nights at other Premier marinas. In the unlikely event that you use them all, that could be worth in the region of £1000 for a 10m boat. And you get 12 months use of the boat for your money - not six (or whatever) - arguably making it cheaper per month than a swinging mooring!

I'm not out to promote Chichester Marina (other marinas are available!) or to knock swinging moorings - I loved being on the one I had for 2 years in Chichester Harbour (once I'd got to the boat) - but merely to explain some of the considerations that led to me choosing a marina over a swinging mooring. I sometimes think we get the best of both worlds, because we can enjoy the convenience of the marina when it comes to loading / unloading / working on the boat etc, but also pick up moorings when out and about looking for solitude.

Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice!!:)
 
Houleaux said:
I've spent three years on swinging moorings and am now on my third in a marina.

Most of the pros and cons have already been mentioned. Swinging moorings can be great, but their location and the available facilities are everything. The last mooring I had was cheap but access was a long dinghy ride (no water taxi option), parking was very difficult (no overnight parking permitted at the nearest launching site - I can still remember the hostile stares I received from local residents when I removed my old Landrover from the street I'd left it in for a week!) and dinghy storage was not very secure. As a result, I hardly used the boat. If you've got a mooring with a water taxi or short hop to shore, secure dinghy storage and plentiful parking, that's a whole different ballgame.

Now we're in a marina we find we use the boat much more. For a start, we use her all year round - something that's not always possible on a mooring due to the operator's t&cs or insurance considerations. And although I'm in Chichester Marina, my experience is not at all like Zagato's. It's very quiet where we are and our neighbours - when we see them - are very nice.

What doesn't seem to have been explored much on this thread is cost - the assumption being that a swinging mooring will always be a lot cheaper. That may be the case if you have a boat that can take the ground, or if you're able to leave the boat on the mooring all year. But if you have a deep fin craft, consider the following:

Chichester harbour Itchenor Reach A2 mooring (deep water for up to 12m - if you can get one!): £1216.08
Winter storage ashore - e.g Thornham Marina which I think are very competitive: £939.36 for 6 months / 10 metre boat + £148.28 cradle hire for the winter season

So, for a 10m boat, that's £2303.72.

Chichester Marina charge £3830.53 for a fully serviced pontoon mooring including storage ashore when required, so the difference is about £1500 (I've ignored lift out / in for the comparison as these will be paid either way).

£1500 is a lot of money, but insurance will be cheaper (£100 less? - I'm guessing here) and you get up to 42 free visitor nights at other Premier marinas. In the unlikely event that you use them all, that could be worth in the region of £1000 for a 10m boat. And you get 12 months use of the boat for your money - not six (or whatever) - arguably making it cheaper per month than a swinging mooring!

I'm not out to promote Chichester Marina (other marinas are available!) or to knock swinging moorings - I loved being on the one I had for 2 years in Chichester Harbour (once I'd got to the boat) - but merely to explain some of the considerations that led to me choosing a marina over a swinging mooring. I sometimes think we get the best of both worlds, because we can enjoy the convenience of the marina when it comes to loading / unloading / working on the boat etc, but also pick up moorings when out and about looking for solitude.

Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice!!:)
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Not wishing to ruffle feathers here, but your last statement,(in red) I find a tad difficult to swallow, I can't enter your marina and use your berth for free, but it sounds as though you think it's ok to come out of the marina and pick up a mooring and have your solitude at someone else's expense, it hasn't happened very often thankfully, but I have come back to find someone on my mooring and refused to move because they haven't finished lunch yet.

Needless to say they got very short thrift from me with a few words of encouragement of where to go.

Apologies in advance if I have read you response incorrectly.
 
epervier said:
Not wishing to ruffle feathers here, but your last statement,(in red) I find a tad difficult to swallow, I can't enter your marina and use your berth for free, but it sounds as though you think it's ok to come out of the marina and pick up a mooring and have your solitude at someone else's expense, it hasn't happened very often thankfully, but I have come back to find someone on my mooring and refused to move because they haven't finished lunch yet.

Needless to say they got very short thrift from me with a few words of encouragement of where to go.

Apologies in advance if I have read you response incorrectly.
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Around here - East Coast/Thames Estuary ii's perfectly OK to pick up a vacant mooring for a lunch/short stop and occassionally an overnight stay but on the assumption you leave immediately the owner returns. This seems to work well around here. I'm on a swinging mooring(£90/yr) but it is a 10 minutes run in the dinghy and impossible if blowing a hooly! I couldn't afford a marina on my pension!
 
Epervier,

I understand what you're getting at, and it especially applies when a huge boat uses what is pretty obviously a small boat mooring, they might damage the chain or drag the sinker then clear off leaving the owner unaware and his boat in danger.

However I do pick up vacant moorings from time to time, it's fine unless leaving the boat unattended which is a defite no - no, also against byelaws in Chichester Harbour and a rule of decency anywhere.

When on someone's mooring, if they turn up ( I only go for ones which look unused, - and check the chain ! Not moorings with tenders on ) the owners have been really polite and apolgetic, I scrabble to get off PDQ but have often been invited to raft aside for a drink / meal.

As I'm not launching my boat this season I have told our moorings officer I'm happy for people to use mine if required ( there is a size limit ).
 
epervier said:
Have to say, purely down to finances it's a swing for us, we simply can't justify the cost of marina berthing at something north of 4k, but fortunately she's in a basin with half a dozen other boats on swings at the princely sum of less than a couple a hundred a year to ABP Southampton, three months ashore during winter costs another 260 so allinall keeps boating costs to a level that as a pensioner I can afford, the row out to her is only 100 metres or so.

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Whereabouts is that delightful looking mooring, if I may ask?
 
epervier said:
Not wishing to ruffle feathers here, but your last statement,(in red) I find a tad difficult to swallow, I can't enter your marina and use your berth for free, but it sounds as though you think it's ok to come out of the marina and pick up a mooring and have your solitude at someone else's expense, it hasn't happened very often thankfully, but I have come back to find someone on my mooring and refused to move because they haven't finished lunch yet.

Needless to say they got very short thrift from me with a few words of encouragement of where to go.

Apologies in advance if I have read you response incorrectly.
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When I had a swinging mooring I would have been happy for others to use it when I was away. Like you, I'd have expected them to move immediately on my return though.

I occasionally pick up vacant moorings that are appropriate for my size of boat (I look at those around to gauge that) but I never leave the boat unattended having done so. Should the owner return while I'm there - as has happened - I would / have moved off immediately. I've never encountered any animosity - but then I wouldn't behave in the way that you've described.

More often than not, when I've picked up a mooring I've paid the harbour master for the privilege - such as in the Beaulieu River, Yarmouth, Newtown Creek, Bray harbour etc.

If I could offer people use of my marina berth while I wasn't there I'd be happy to do so, but that's not an option.
 
Nick,

"We have this year gone from a mid water pontoon mooring (Wicormarine, Fareham Creek) down to a marina (Haslar, Gosport)."

How are you finding driving to and from Gosport from the M27 (assuming that your location means you don't live south of Fareham)? I've always fancied Haslar or the other lock free marinas on that side of the harbour but been put off by my perception of terrible roads and traffic especially on a summer Sunday evening. On balance I've preferred to stay at Wicor on the basis that I'd rather be sailing than driving.

I think Wicor did run a launch service for a while but couldn't make it pay.

Mark
 
Mark Turner said:
Nick,

"We have this year gone from a mid water pontoon mooring (Wicormarine, Fareham Creek) down to a marina (Haslar, Gosport)."

How are you finding driving to and from Gosport from the M27 (assuming that your location means you don't live south of Fareham)? I've always fancied Haslar or the other lock free marinas on that side of the harbour but been put off by my perception of terrible roads and traffic especially on a summer Sunday evening. On balance I've preferred to stay at Wicor on the basis that I'd rather be sailing than driving.

I think Wicor did run a launch service for a while but couldn't make it pay.

Mark
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I'm in Haslar. At first I was worried about the drive down the 'peninsular' but it's rarely been as bad as I feared and I've got stuck no more often that used to happen leaving Hamble and trying to get back up to the M27 past the 'Tesco' roundabouts.

One compensation of Gosport is that if I don't need to take much kit, the train to Portsmouth Harbour Station and the Go Sport Ferry make a stress-free option.
 
Twister_Ken said:
I'm in Haslar. At first I was worried about the drive down the 'peninsular' but it's rarely been as bad as I feared and I've got stuck no more often that used to happen leaving Hamble and trying to get back up to the M27 past the 'Tesco' roundabouts.

One compensation of Gosport is that if I don't need to take much kit, the train to Portsmouth Harbour Station and the Go Sport Ferry make a stress-free option.
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When I had a deep water mooring the road traffic to Gosport was a right pain.

However Gosport Boatyard have / had a really good launch, just as well as the mooring in Spider Lake required a very big tender - like something the Marines would use - otherwise.

Previously on a deep water mooring off Hayling, the club involved advertised a ferry service, it was a lumpy place to be.

One Sunday afternoon I had sailed my Carter 30 around from Bosham to the mooring, with my elderly Mum, to the mooring.

My Dad ashore tapped the ferry guy on the shoulder, " can you go and get my Wife & son off their boat please "

' Sod off mate, I'm too tired ! '

I can understand the ferry guy's position, he was very likely being paid peanuts and working hard, treated like dirt.

Mum and I had to use the Zodiac 240 & 2 hp engine, even with the Zodiacs' large tubes we had waves over.

All I can say is, 10/10 Gosport Boatyard !


No connections anywhere mentioned.
 
A pretty obvious point, but much depends on how convenient it is to store, get to, and use the tender.

If you can keep the tender afloat on a yacht club pontoon, or on a sheltered, steep, sandy beach, a mooring is much more attractive than if you have to trundle the tender down a long, muddy, hard and then run the trolley back to the dinghy park.
 
epervier said:
Not wishing to ruffle feathers here, but your last statement,(in red) I find a tad difficult to swallow, I can't enter your marina and use your berth for free, but it sounds as though you think it's ok to come out of the marina and pick up a mooring and have your solitude at someone else's expense, it hasn't happened very often thankfully, but I have come back to find someone on my mooring and refused to move because they haven't finished lunch yet.

Needless to say they got very short thrift from me with a few words of encouragement of where to go.

Apologies in advance if I have read you response incorrectly.
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Actually, when in a marina berth its not unheard of to come back to find someone on your berth. I know that they have been charged to visit but that money doesn't come to the berth holder so its the same really.
 
ricky_s said:
Actually, when in a marina berth its not unheard of to come back to find someone on your berth. I know that they have been charged to visit but that money doesn't come to the berth holder so its the same really.
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I don't agree with you, in the marina they have the right to move you where they like, their business is to make a profit, my mooring is exactly that, my mooring, there is no alternative available or offered for me to go to, I am the mooring license holder, the ground tackle up to the pick up buoy is my property. In short it's a private mooring, I don't have a problem with someone using it in my absence, as long as it's not abused, and prepared to vacate upon my return.

It's on the (rare thankfully) occasions on returning to my mooring I'm told to piss off, they were here first, and having lunch, but to be fair that was on a different mooring in a well used sheltered area ideal for stop overs.
 
We kept our boat in a marina for the first year we had her. It was expensive and irritating, as there was access only three ours either side of high water. We the got a swinging mooring for not a lot, plus a club house with showers, good car parking and dinghy storage. But the real upside was access to the water at any state of the tide, so it meant that we used the boat far more than we had when it was in the marina.

Like all in life, it's a balancing act and for us it was easy to go for the mooring. If the marinas in the area had had full tide access, then it would have made the decision tree much more complicated.

A final point, we could not get insurance cover with the boat afloat all year round. IIRC she had to be out of the water 1 Nov - 31 Mar: not a problem as part of the deal was storage ashore in the winter and she had her own trailer.
 
I have recently been able to return to a swinging mooring from a mid river pontoon, not linked to the shore.

A big plus for the swinging mooring is that I can let go and pick up single handed and be pretty sure that if I go off sailing and the wind gets up I can get back on my mooring in any sensible weather. if it is too rough to go out in the tender, should you be going sailing?


I know there are plenty of techniques for single handing onto pontoon berths but there is more to go wrong and more need for help. Also with the swinging mooring it is simple: strop on bow and that is it. With the pontoon there is the business of sorting out fenders and warps and wondering if they will be there if the wind blows on or off or gets up midweek and you wish you had put extra out when you left the boat on a calm sunday evening!
 
chubby said:
if it is too rough to go out in the tender, should you be going sailing?
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If its too rough to go by tender it means I can't check the mooring line or tend to any loose lines around the vessel. That's one time I'd prefer her to be in a marina.

A swinger can still use the boat all year round though - just go into a marina over the winter - the cost is much less.
 
fireball said:
If its too rough to go by tender it means I can't check the mooring line or tend to any loose lines around the vessel. That's one time I'd prefer her to be in a marina.

A swinger can still use the boat all year round though - just go into a marina over the winter - the cost is much less.
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I have tried both, a few times in marinas; my insurers ( Haven ) insist on marina or ashore for the winter.

At some swinging moorings I've been on it has been positively dangerous in the tender, but a doddle in the cruiser; I was relying on the advertised ( other ) club ferry service which decided they couldn't be arsed to turn up !

At times like that the tube diameter of ones' inflatable and a light outboard are of great interest, as are lifejackets.

However marinas are not foolproof, I know a local one where the pontoons float at crazy angles at LW and have claimed a few lives when icy.
 
It depends on where you are, and what shore facilities are available to non-marina moorings.

For me, on the Hamble, its a no-brainer: £350 odd per year on a fore-and-aft mooring, with my tender at my "all facilities" club nearby (plus the club launches at weekends), or £6,000 per year in the next nearest marina!

And, living over an hour away, if the weather cuts up rough then I reckon my boat is far more secure on its mooring - four 18mm thick polypropylene mooring lines, two to each heavy duty mooring buoy - than on a pontoon with the potential for fenders to pop out and the boat see-saw itself against the pontoon.

A wind-gen looks after the batteries no problem, but before I fitted this I always had enough charge by the simple fact of motoring in/out of the river (and the engine has its own battery anyway which is always recharged before the domestics get a look-in).

It might be a different story if I was a live-aboard, and/or did my boating well away from the expense of the Solent.
 
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